Jurgen Klopp has condemned ‘fake news’ stories about Liverpool’s win over Manchester United.
A report in the wake of last weekend’s Old Trafford rout suggested that the German felt his side’s hosts merited more sendings off than just Paul Pogba.
Pogba himself was forced earlier this week to shoot down claims of an alleged falling out between himself and under-fire United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Now, Klopp has followed suit by addressing misrepresentations made around the Reds’ camp following the rousing five-goal victory against their arch-rivals.
He said: “I have to make one point because I really think it’s an important one.
“What we all think when somebody says ‘fake news is not right’, stuff like this, we think ‘yeah…’
“But a real fake news story last week was that I thought United should have had more red cards. I didn’t think a second about it. Not a second.
“Sitting in the dressing room, there was not one talk that was like in The Athletic [article] said something about ‘people close to the staff’ – which I always find is a dangerous saying – said that Klopp thought they should have been more red cards.
“For all of you, and in this case The Athletic, you cannot do these kind of things. It’s just not right. It’s wrong. It’s a lie.
“We didn’t think about it. We didn’t speak about it, not for a second. I couldn’t have told you which situations they were talking about.
“We spoke about obviously Cristiano Ronaldo’s situation and my [initial] view was I thought yes, it could be a red card (for the foul on Curtis Jones).
“But when I saw it back, I saw he gets the ball. Yes, it’s a yellow. Completely fine, no problem with that. We never spoke about that.
“There was one question in the press conference. That’s it. It’s not the most important thing, just it’s a sign… Why would you make a story like that?
“There was enough United-Liverpool stories obviously last week. Nobody needed that one on top of that.
“You have to be serious in these things. All of you.
“You cannot do these kind of things just to sell a few lines or whatever because there was with Pogba something [similar].
“I think there was a story where he said ‘It’s fake news’ so these are real fake news – not what (Donald) Trump was talking about.
“These were really, real fake news.”